Touched by an Alien (13 page)

THE TRIP TO LA GUARDIA WAS QUIET
. And slow. We were stuck in rush hour traffic, which in New York is impressive.

Everyone was tired, so we didn’t talk much. I was okay with that. It gave me more time to plot how to run Christopher over with a truck.

A little whining from Martini got Gower to reverse the no napping mandate, and pretty soon everyone but Reader and me seemed out.

Martini shifted in his sleep, put his arm around me, and pulled me next to him. I wondered whether he was really asleep, but I figured he wouldn’t have let his head bob against the seat and the window if he was awake. I shoved my purse between his head and the window and he snuggled into it.

Christopher was slouched into the corner of the front seat, Gower was sleeping in the same way across from Martini, and Mom had curled into a ball, using her purse as a pillow. For some reason, all of them sleeping made me more alert.

I saw Reader look at me in the rearview mirror. “You can snooze too, if you want,” he offered. “I’m fine.”

I shook my head. “I’d like to, but someone else has to be conscious.” Even though I was bone tired, I was also totally wired and wide awake.

He grinned. “Yeah, we have to watch over our brothers from another planet.”

“True enough.” I considered everything that had happened today and was very proud that I was more interested in getting some answers than in freaking out. “So, they have all these things like gates and we sit in traffic?”

“That’s the way it goes, girlfriend.”

“Why?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Some because it helps keep a lower profile. Some because our enemies might not expect it. And some because they want to fit in.”

This seemed possible if they were hanging with a lot of other male models. Not so likely if they were wandering around with the rest of us. “Does it actually work? The fitting in, I mean.”

“Somewhat. Jeff’s the best at it, by a long shot.”

“You just trying to make me like him?”

Reader chuckled. “No. But of all of them, he’s the most adaptable. Always has been, at least since he was a teenager.”

I thought about Chuckie for some reason. He was adaptable, too. He’d had to be—the smartest guy in the room tends to draw a lot of unwanted attention from big, mean jerks. Chuckie had grown up into a really awesome adult, which made me wonder if Martini had been similar in childhood. Then again, call it loyalty, call it stubbornness, but it was going to be hard for anyone to prove to me that they were a match for Chuckie’s brainpower.

The urge to send a text to Chuckie telling him what was really going on was almost overpowering. I mean, even Professor X and Brainiac liked to hear they were right now and again. I glanced at Martini. He was still clearly asleep. And I was plotting to share his existence with someone not in the know, and he wasn’t reacting to it. “How can Martini be napping?”

“Um, he’s tired?”

“No, I mean, he’s an empath. He said he was really powerful.”

“He is. Jeff’s the most powerful empath on the planet.”

“Impressive. But he’s asleep.”

“I’m not following you, girlfriend.”

I tried to figure out how to explain what I meant without sharing that I wanted to let Chuckie in on the Big Secret. Well, per the confusing explanation of A-C hyperspeed ability, Reader was also a comics fan. “Daredevil has to sleep in that whole immersion chamber thing in order to drown out all the sound.”

“Oh! Gotcha. Well, it’s a little different for the empaths. They have blocks.”

I sighed. “Really, Martini told me that much already. I don’t understand what they are or how they work. And, is it like in the X-Men, where the mutant powers usually show up during puberty?”

“I don’t fully understand it all, either, since Paul’s not an empath, but I’ll give it a shot. A-C talents can show up any time before adulthood, which for them is similar to us—around twenty-one. The stronger the talent, the earlier it shows. The average is, like for the X-Men, somewhere around puberty.”

“So, what happens when the acne coincides with the ability to know how mad your mother really is with your crashing her car?”

“I’m not going to ask why you used that example, girlfriend. The A-Cs test all their kids when they’re young to spot talent inclination. It’s only an issue for some of their talents. I mean, scientific aptitude doesn’t mean you have to shut anything off.”

I thought about the fun Chuckie had had prior to college. “Other than maybe your brain.”

Reader chuckled. “Yeah. So, the empathic-likely get trained in how to block off emotions. It becomes not quite as automatic as breathing but about as automatic as blocking a punch if you’ve trained in a fighting form long enough.”

“Okay. Martini mentioned drugs.”

“Yeah. They shoot a variety of drugs into the empaths. None of them are harmful to their metabolisms—it’s not like they’re addicts. The drugs enhance the blocks and blocking ability and strengthen their empathic synapses.”

“How often do they wear off?”

“Depends on the empath and what he’s doing. The more activity, physical and emotional in particular, or the more onslaught of emotions hitting the empath, the sooner they burn out.”

“So, getting into a fight with your mother would burn you out?”

“Depends on the fight. But a fight like we just had with Mephistopheles, where people you care about are in danger and you’re also physically fighting? That can wear you down fast.”

“Is that why he’s sleeping?”

“Probably. And he’s learned to put what they call sleep blocks up automatically. From what Paul’s told me, Jeff can and does sleep like a rock, unless someone nearby is in real danger, because their emotions have to be off the charts and they have to be the negative ones—fear, hatred, and the like—or he’s trained to ignore them.”

“So you and Paul can be romantic next door and Martini’s not going to know?”

Reader laughed. “He might know, but he’s not going to wake up and rate our performances. He’ll ignore it, because that’s part of what the blocks do—help them ignore all the emotions around them. Like Daredevil’s chamber but without the being locked away and submerged in water parts.”

I considered this as we sat there, not moving much, if at all. “So, when did the strongest empath on the planet’s talent surface?”

Reader cleared his throat. “Birth.”

“Um, you’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. Jeff’s parents aren’t empathic, they aren’t talented in any way. So from what I’ve gotten, it was hard on them.”

“Had to have been harder on him.”

“Yeah. Jeff had to be in isolation a lot as a child. And as for what that’s like, you’ll have to ask him—I’ve never spent any time in or around the isolation chambers.”

“Why not?”

“They creep me out. They make Daredevil’s chamber look like a tanning bed. But Jeff insists they’re not that bad. Christopher won’t give me his opinion about them, though.”

“Does he go into isolation?” And could we put him there right away?

“No, not that I’ve ever heard of.” He looked to his right. “But as a child, Christopher wasn’t all that much better off.”

“He’s an empath?” I found that hard to believe.

“No, different talent. But his surfaced at birth, too. It’s why they’re a team—no one else can keep up with them, in that sense.”

“And yet the image of me killing a ‘terrorist’ made the international news. You know, there’s a part of me that’s really unimpressed.”

Reader laughed again. “They’re only human, if you know what I mean. Everyone makes mistakes, girlfriend, even you.”

“Point out what mistakes I’ve made today, other than agreeing to get into the limo in front of the courthouse.”

“Too busy driving to think about it.” Reader looked over his shoulder and flashed the cover-boy grin. “But give me a little time and I’m sure I can come up with something.”

“I’ll bet.” I closed my eyes and tried to rest. Couldn’t. Opened my eyes. “What happens when they run down? The empaths, I mean.”

“Again, it depends on the empath. Usually they just need to sleep. If they’re not doing well, they need to sleep in isolation. They do almost a system flush, to clear out toxins that build up from the exposure to negative emotions. Then they put the good stuff back in. I don’t really know much more about it.”

“Because you haven’t asked?”

“Because no one wants to talk about it. A-C talents seem physically connected as much as mentally, at least to me. It’s hard to get a straight answer.”

“They don’t want us knowing their weaknesses.”

“Can you blame them?”

I thought about it. “Honestly? No. So what happens to Martini when he gets drained?” Reader was quiet. “Ah, James? Are we being followed or something?”

“No.”

“Then why are you suddenly Mr. Silent Night?”

He sighed. “The stronger the empathic talent, the longer they can last, so the more they can push themselves.” He didn’t say anything else.

Of course, it wasn’t hard to figure out the obvious conclusion. “And, therefore, the harder they crash.”

“Right.”

I looked at Martini. “He sure seems healthy.”

“He is. And hale and hearty and whatever other descriptions you might want to apply. At least until his blocks wear down. Then he becomes, first, almost like a regular human—can’t pick up much, it’s like the talent mutes.”

“You said at first. What happens at second? Or third?”

“The muting goes away, and it’s a barrage of emotions. Hard to handle.”

“Like putting a chameleon on plaid?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Then it starts to affect him physically and mentally. The reactions are similar to anyone who might have pushed themselves too far physically and mentally, only they hit faster and, from all I’ve seen, a lot harder. After that, if he doesn’t get care in time, and in time means really fast . . .”

“The dramatic pause is great, only it’s lacking that certain something. Like actual information.”

Reader looked over his shoulder again, only this time he wasn’t smiling. “If he doesn’t get care in time, Jeff will die.”

THAT CHEERFUL STATEMENT SAT ON THE AIR
for a while. I resisted the urge to wish it were Christopher instead of Martini who was the walking death time bomb, then reminded myself I wasn’t attached to any of them, least of all Martini, and decided I could worry about something else.

“So, would this evening’s entertainment mean Martini’s at death’s door?” Okay, I could almost worry about something else.

“Nope. Believe me, when Jeff’s that bad, you’ll know.”

“Can’t wait.” Since imminent death wasn’t on the docket, unless we were trapped in the never-ending traffic jam and were going to die from old age, still sitting in this limo, I chose to relax.

I watched the cars as we all inched forward. Which was so very soothing that my mind raced to the next set of questions it wanted answered while we snailed along. “Why can’t we kill Yates?”

“We have to kill him when he’s Mephistopheles.”

“Why?”

Reader sighed. “It’s complicated, but I’ll give it a try.” He was really pushing the complicated. I wondered if there was a hidden message Reader was trying to get across to me, but if so, I wasn’t picking it up.

“Didn’t you ask these questions when you joined up?”

“Yeah, I did. But the scientists handle most of this, and they don’t share all that much information with one of the human drivers, even if I am a part of Alpha Team.”

“Seems unfair.”

“I deal with it. You still interested in all the superbeing stuff, or do you want to head to office politics?”

“I think I’m more at risk from a superbeing, so let’s deal with that.”

“And you say you work in marketing? Anyway, when the parasite hits, it takes over. That’s why the superbeings mutate immediately.” I’d seen that in action, so no argument there. “But in the rare cases where the human-parasite combination doesn’t go berserk, the parasite internalizes.” He’d told me as much already, so, fine. “In those cases, the human brain seems split. So when they’re in human form, they don’t really know they have a parasite inside them. As far as we can tell, it’s only when the parasite senses a threat that it converts back into a superbeing.”

This was news. “So in the cases where the combination is, what—stable?—the parasite is smart enough to hang out as a human unless threatened?”

“Seems that way, yeah.”

“Does the parasite remember it
is
a parasite?”

Reader sighed. “We don’t know. There are only a few in-control superbeings, thankfully. But because there are a limited number, and we can’t find them, we don’t have a lot of intelligence about them. Most of what we know is conjecture.”

“No Cerebro-type thing for finding parasites or superbeings, huh?”